La Belle Dame Sans Merci
by The Blizzard Alchemist
Summary: What do you realy know about Yuuko Ichihara? OneShot. Crossover with Neil Gaiman's Stardust, but you don't have to have read it to enjoy.


A/N: I'm not exactly sure when and where I came up with this idea, and it certainly turned into something completely different than what I expected, but I think it turned out alright. I have a vauge memory of reading Stardust my Neil Gaiman and suddenly associating the Market with Yuuko's shop, but I guess I went a little crazy.

The title comes from the poem written by John Keats, which I use in the story.

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Lady Una of Stormhold lays back on her couch, her kimono practically sliding off her languid form and listens to the cicadas outside. She hears the muttered grumblings of her hired help as he frets and yells at the two little ones for sneaking off with the food he's preparing. She knows that if he knew her past he wouldn't be so quick to grumble, but it _is_ fun to listen to his rants and the profession of his love to his sweetheart and the food that he prepares reminds her of that at home. The smell of the food that is wafting over to her seat calms her as she lights her pipe, taking a drag of the tobacco leaves. Now is her time to think about the past

She appreciates the irony of her current impression. After all those years as a slave-girl to a witch, working against her will…when she had been freed she hadn't wanted to see the mortal world ever again, to never come within a thousand miles of a Market, not that a thing like miles is able to stop someone in Faerie if they were so motivated. She had made her triumphant return to her home and spent several years acting as Regent, waiting for her son to return and rightfully rule. She could have sworn that he had purposely extended his trip, just to annoy her. But return he did reaffirming, though she had known the instant he had been born, that this was where he belonged. She had abdicated her position and went about the castle, happy for her son and daughter-in-law. She had gradually realized, walking up and down the cold stone halls…

"Lunch is ready Yuuko-san" calls her help from the kitchen, carrying a platter of onigiri and placing it in front of her. The alias has become so comfortable over the years, especially after all the years of having none. It was a nice alternative, not having to reveal your true name, and still being acknowledged and she liked the name. The first half meant, "to repay kindness" and she felt that it nicely encompassed her new profession.

"Come join me Kimihiro." She gives him her trademark mysterious smile, "You can clean up after we eat." Kimihiro visibly relaxes, taking off his apron and sitting on the couch next to her.

"Eh? What is this Yuko-san?" He asks, pointing to the book that sits, propped open by her arm.

She look back at him, her smile wavering imperceptibly for a moment before picking the book up again, holding it open. "This?" She responds, "I was thinking about it for a moment, see what you think of it."

I met a lady in the meads,

Full beautiful - a faery's child,

Her hair was long,

her foot was light,

And her eyes were wild.

I made a garland for her head,

And bracelets too,

and fragrant zone;

She looked at me as she did love,

And made sweet moan.

I set her on my pacing steed,

And nothing else saw all day long,

For sidelong would she bend,

and singA faery's song.

She found me roots of relish sweet,

And honey wild,and manna-dew,

And sure in language strange she said -'I love thee true'.

She took me to her elfin grot,

And there she wept and sighed full sore,

And there I shut her wild wild eyes

With kisses four.

And there she lulled me asleep

And there I dreamed - Ah! woe betide!

The latest dream I ever dreamt

On the cold hill side.

I saw pale kings and princes too,

Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;

They cried - 'La Belle Dame sans Merci'

Hath thee in thrall!'

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,

With horrid warning gaped wide,

And I awoke and found me here,

On the cold hill's side.

Kimihiro shudders of a moment and looks at her strangely for a moment, "What does that mean Yuuko-san?" His blue cat-like eyes contract slightly, clearly confused.

"In the tales of the Gaelic tribes they speak of the Fay. There are many names, no more correct than the other. According to the legends, mortal men are not to hear their song, eat of their food, or" she pauses now, her face breaking out into a mischievous grin, "Indulge in their flesh. For once you have, nothing else will be so fine. They will pine away for the rest of their short lives, unwilling to eat, unwilling to love. And so the knight will die, alone, miserable." She finishes the last of the onigiri which she had had been eating between verses. "Now, clean up. You need to mop the floors after this, and then I have an errand for you to run."

Kimihiro lets out a loud groan and rises from the couch, grabbing the tray and retreating back to the kitchen. "Yuuko-san" he calls back, "What happens to the woman?"She purses her lips for a moment. "The poem never says Kimihiro." There is a clatter as he returns to the kitchen, followed by the sound of cleaning. "It never says." She says to herself, trailing off to her world of memories.

She no longer belonged. The years when she couldn't be home had hurt her, but after the first decade it no longer hurt as much and was eventually replaced by her drive to somehow escape. But to finally return to Stormhold and realize that, deep down, it was no longer her home…it had hurt her more than anything Ditchwater Sal had ever done.

And so she left what remained of her family, trying to convince herself that she was doing it for a reason which was, if not grand, not petty and ignoble. She had learned much during her time of forced apprenticeship, and even more than her teacher could have conceived. Faerie, the conglomeration of things that do not exist, had begun to grow at an amazing rate as the Age of Enlightenment continued, disproving, and therefore creating Lemuria and Atlantis. She found the soft places, areas of the world which bleed into each other, bringing her to worlds beyond Faerie, realms where time fell apart, or built upon each other, and different versions of the same people, their souls similar but never quite the same. Glamour became a useful skill, allowing her to meet everyone as a friend. But she never allowed herself to become too close to anyone, refusing to commit to a world, a single universe. She discovered how to rip holes into dimensions, traveling from world to world, stopping to try new foods and customs, realizing that she loved the taste of sake, and that she wanted more of it.

It was because of it that she had met him. She had wanted to punch that smiling face, to shatter those perfectly stupid glasses. She had still wanted to that night when he put his mouth over hers. And then she had kissed back. She later reflected that it was a habit of hers. She settled for punching his face the next morning before kissing him on the nose. It hadn't lasted. They had both known it, had gotten a glimpse of what was to come.

"We don't a choice now, do we?" he had told her, her face embedded in his shoulder, quietly crying, "There is no such thing as coincidence in this, or any world, there is only Hitsuzen."

"And what the hell does that that mean?" She had said, a small sob escaping her lips before holding him again.

They went their separate ways, him taking those cards he had grown so fond of, her taking the mementos of the time they had spent together in Cephiro. It had been a month later that she realized that he was pregnant.

The land on which she had built the shop on was been a soft place which she had discovered. It allowed to her watch his descendants grow. Practically every market had been shut down, the one at Wall half a century since she had been there. "There is a reason for the Market." She could remember her father saying to her when she had been a young girl. So she had made her own, one that was always open, one that didn't rely on those silly guards, one that would only let in those who needed her help.

She had given up the child. She knew that she would be an awful parent and knew that Tristran had been lucky. She ran her shop, dealing with human, yokai, and her own kind. She would entertain herself experimenting.

And then one day she heard the door swing open and Moro and Maru both cry out "Welcome." She could hear a voice, complaining about how his feet were moving on his own. "It is your Hitsuzen. That is why you have come." She had called out. The second door opened and she saw him, the blue cat-like eyes, the pale face. Hitsuzen indeed.

"I'm done Yuuko." Called Kimihiro, dressed again in his school uniform, "Can I go home now?"

Lady Una, the Witch of Dimension, Yuuko Ichihara looks up from the couch at him. "Well, I suppose you deserve a little bonus. Here, take this." She reaches and takes a topaz pendant seemingly from nowhere and hands it to him. The topaz flashes and the chain attaches itself around his neck.

"There you go, I hope you like it." She says with a giggle as Kimihiro tries in vain to pull it off.

"WHAT THE HELL IS THIS THING?" Kimihiro rants, his eyes practically popping out of their sockets.

"Now, before you go for the day, run up to the store and pick up some sake for me. You didn't forget about that, did you?"

She returns to listening to the cicadas, chuckling to herself over Kimihiro's indignant shouts. "Hitsuzen is a strange thing, isn't it, my son?"

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I hope you all enjoyed.

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